Category: photographs

Since the last post on Senator Morgan, we have completed the actual processing of the entire collection. Now we are performing conservation and digitization work with the assistance of Larry Houston, Joe Baricella and Justin Borer. Planning the exhibit is well underway and a preview will be available to donors, friends of the family, and faculty and staff at East Carolina University April 8th 2018, The location of the exhibit is on the 4th floor of Joyner Library.

The focus of this exhibit is to showcase Senator Morgan’s influence and involvement locally, statewide, federally and internationally, and it will feature documents, including correspondence, maps, and speeches, as well as photographs highlighting various points throughout Senator Morgan’s life and career. It will also contain artifacts and ephemera, and stations set up where visitors can listen to various audio recordings of Senator Morgan.

North Carolina Senator Robert Morgan with President Jimmy Carter and others in the sitting area of Air Force I. Senator Morgan is in the President’s seat while the President sits on floor. Title and date from handwritten note on verso.

The topics covered throughout the exhibit will range from his early and personal life, through his professional career including his time as a lawyer, state senator, Attorney General, U.S Senator, and his time post-U.S. Senator as the Director of the State Bureau of Investigation [SBI]. I will be collaborating with our digital department to create an online exhibit for persons unable to attend the exhibit in person.

For any questions regarding the current status of the project and the exhibit, please contact Project Archivist, Sherry Cortes at cortess17@ecu.edu or (252) 328 – 0276.

Description: Senator Robert Morgan was a North Carolina native, born and raised in Lillington, N.C. This collection contains personal papers, Senatorial documents, newspapers, photographs and correspondence spanning Morgan’s life.

Senator Robert Morgan was born in Lillington, North Carolina in 1925. Following his public school education, he went on to attend the Wake Forest Law School, became a skilled trial lawyer and quickly rose from Clerk of Court to the position of President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina State Senate. He began donating his papers to East Carolina University in the mid-1970s and continuously donated his personal and professional works until he passed away in 2016. I started working on the Senator Robert Morgan Papers Processing Project in April, 2017 for East Carolina University’s Joyner Library. As the project archivist for this collection, it has been an exciting opportunity to chronicle the life and accomplishments of such a prominent figure in North Carolina history. Senator Morgan served as a North Carolina State Senator from 1955-1969, and as a one-term US Senator from North Carolina from 1975-1981, but his prolific career beyond the political arena put a mark on so much of the State’s history.

The Robert Morgan Papers is the largest collection of personal and professional documents amassed by East Carolina University and is currently housed in the Special Collections Division of Joyner Library at East Carolina University (ECU). The collection holds information regarding the Senator’s professional and personal life. The Morgan archives chronicle his service in the Vietnam and Korean Wars, his rise to North Carolina Attorney General and his role in creating landmark consumer protection measures, his tenure as an ECU University Trustee and his fight to establish a medical school at East Carolina University, his controversial stance on the Panama Canal, his leading role in the Energy Crisis, and his repositioning of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). These documents also shed light on his ideological metamorphosis from a “traditional Southern Democrat” to the national Democratic mainstream particularly in the area of desegregation.

Senator Morgan’s Papers include personal and family documents, legislative and campaign files, correspondence, North Carolina Attorney General and U.S. Senator files, ECU Board of Trustees and State Bureau of Investigations files. Photographs, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, speeches, books, films, audiotapes, diaries, microfilms and oversized materials are in our archives as well. We hired two graduate assistants in May, 2017, Daniel Hemme and Martha Mihich who have been invaluable in completing the description and arrangement of the collection. In addition to the graduate assistants, Special Collection Curator, Dr. Jonathan Dembo and volunteer Dick Wolfe have been helping to move the process along quickly. Between the four of us we have currently completed describing 1012 boxes of the 1075 total in the collection. I am also collaborating with Justin Borer to help in the digitization of audio tapes, manuscripts and photographs of interest. Conservator Lawrence Houston has been providing conservation advice and assistance in handling damaged or fragile documents. We are all working as quickly as possible to digitize the chosen objects so they can be fully accessible in the online Digital Repository.

Once we have fully completed the processing of the paper and digital elements of the collection we will work on the exhibit which will be available for viewing on the 3rd floor of Joyner Library in

Graduate Assistant, Martha Mihich, hard at work

early 2018. As work continues, we will be sharing updates about our progress on an ongoing basis and what we are finding. There will be future posts to provide more information about Senator Morgan and some of the interesting items we find during processing. Researchers will be able to locate the collection’s finding aid online if they are interested in accessing Senator Morgan’s Papers.

For more information on Senator Morgan’s Papers and the continuing progress of the project, please contact Sherry Cortes, Project Archivist at cortess17@ecu.edu or (252) 328 – 0276

Description: Emil Görling, a German solider during World War I, was a member of the Aufraumungs-Arbeit (literally translated as the “clean-up” crew) in the 3rd Landwehr Division of the Imperial German Army. Görling’s division participated in the 1918 German Spring Offensive in France. The two images here were among 14 gelatin photographs and 4 printed postcards that belonged to him. They show both the horror of war and the pastimes of soldiers everywhere.

The East Carolina Playhouse

Description: Today’s post features an original program for Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters as presented by the East Carolina Playhouse. This 1985 production cast list includes future Oscar-winning Actress and ECU alumni, Sandra Bullock. Visit Joyner Library’s Digital Collections page to view digitized images of items featured in this post.

Official Program for East Carolina Playhouse’s presentation of The Three Sisters featuring Sandra Bullock and Kevin Williamson.

The East Carolina Playhouse began as the Teachers Playhouse during the mid-1940s. This campus organization was initially designed to “give its members practical experience” and “promote an enthusiasm for the drama in all its phases (1949 Tecoan, p. 105 https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/15354).” Over the years, the Playhouse’s popularity increased, as did student participation. Campus yearbooks often boasted successful seasons, paying homage to the actors and actresses involved.

Sandra Bullock and The Playhouse

Sandra Bullock enrolled at East Carolina University in the early 1980s, by which time the Playhouse served as a well-established campus organization. She landed starring roles in several Playhouse productions during her college years. In The Three Sisters, Bullock played Irina, the youngest of three Russian sisters seeking deliverance from unexceptional, small-town lives. Additionally,she starred as Jean in Stage Door (1983) and as Tiger Lily in Peter Pan (1985). Interestingly, another noteworthy ECU alumni, future filmography icon Kevin Williamson, acted alongside Bullock in her 1985 Playhouse performances.

Image and cast list featured in the 1986 copy of The Buccaneer, p. 182.

Sandra Bullock (front and center) playing Jean in Stage Door. Image taken from the 1984 copy of The Buccaneer, p. 234.

Guilford Andrews carried this woman’s portrait during the Civil War. Andrews was a member of Company E. 43rd Regiment, known as “The Edgecombe Boys”. He enlisted at the age of 22 on January 28th 1862. He was mustered in at Camp Mangum, near Raleigh. He was wounded in the elbow at or near Bethesda Church, Virginia, on May 30th 1864. http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/totopotomoy-creek/maps/totopotomoy-creek-may.html He returned to duty on September-October, 1864, and was promoted to Corporal, on November 1, 1864. He was then captured near Petersburg, Virginia on March 25, 1865. He was a prisoner at Point Lookout, Maryland, and he was released on June 22, 1865, after taking the Oath of Allegiance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Lookout,_Maryland

Description: This image features Leo Warren Jenkins serving on Guadalcanal. Born in Succasunna, New Jersey, Jenkins enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1942 upon completion of his doctoral degree at New York University. For his distinguished service, Jenkins was awarded a Bronze Star and two presidential unit citations. In 1947, Jenkins accepted the position of Dean of Men at then East Carolina Teachers College. He succeeded John D. Messick as President of East Carolina College in 1960 and in 1967 he was designated as the first Chancellor of East Carolina University. As president and chancellor, Jenkins oversaw major increases in student enrollment, the addition of a medical school, a major building campaign, and spearheaded the drive for university status. Upon his retirement in 1978 he continued to serve the citizens of North Carolina as a special assistant for Economic Development for Governor James B. Hunt, Jr. Jenkins passed away on January 14, 1989. Ever proud of being a Marine, he once remarked, “…it has been brought to my attention that there are more Marines enrolled in this institution than in any other college or university in the world. This pleases me very much for I shall always be proud of my association with these men. Since revolutionary war days, it has always been said that once a Marine always a Marine. This will be my lasting honor.”

Description: Since we are under considerable construction at present, the following image offers some past history of construction of and around Joyner Library. The image features an exterior view of J.Y. Joyner Library on the East Carolina University campus during the 1974 construction of the west wing addition to the library. Mendenhall Student Center in the background.

Description: A Photograph of the General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, General Robert A. McClure, Lieutenant General Robert Frederick Sink. Lieutenant General Robert Frederick Sink was born in Lexington, North Carolina and served in both World War II and Korea. General Sink had a distinguished career as a pioneer in the use of airborne warfare. As commander of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the Army Airborne Corps, he was sent to Europe in 1942. He subsequently participated in the Allied Invasion of Normandy, parachuting under cover of dark before seaborne troops landed. His troops saw action at the Battle of the Bulge at Bastogne. After World War II, he served as Chief of Staff of the RYUKUS command (1949), assistant commander of the Seventh Infantry Division in Korea (1951), and member of the Joint Airborne Troop Board at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (1954). In 1958, Sink was given command of the Strategic Army Corps (STRAC) and the 18th Airborne. In 1960, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and took command of the U.S. Army in the Caribbean, a post he held until his retirement in 1961 due to poor health. Sink died at Fort Bragg in 1965.